Playwright Pit Stop: Does the Mundane Exist in Playwriting?

How can theater artists use the "mundane" in their work if the concept itself is paradoxical?

Once upon a graduate school seminar, I found myself in yet another in depth discussion about “kitchen sink plays”, also known as “couch plays” at my school, and their relevance to a modern audience. I know, it sounds incredibly pretentious, and honestly it probably was. Graduate school does tend towards pretension, I will admit.

But anyways, we were discussing these plays yet again amidst the larger discussion of new play development. In case you’re unaware of what a “kitchen sink/couch play” is, it is essentially a play where most of the action takes place in a family home, and the conflict is mostly regarding family drama and a central member’s inner crisis of some kind. This phenomenon started, arguably, in the 1950’s with what is actually called “kitchen sink realism”, which was a British movement. Academics state that this started with John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956). On the American side of things, I think there are quite a few well known plays that fit into this general idea of “kitchen sink realism” as well, such as Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

These plays, as previously stated, discuss family drama and tend to take place within the family home. They are called “kitchen sink” (or “couch”) plays because of their setting— an as close to realistic depiction of the home as possible. Most of the plots revolve around what a lot of us would call “everyday life”, usually focused on a point where the family cracks under the weight of said life. In the previously mentioned examples, all (or almost all) of the family member’s faults are weighed against each other, and this causes conflict in which emotional distress, psychological issues, and even death occur.

A lot of my playwriting and devising mentors in graduate school found these plays to be boring, lacking nuance. I agreed on some level— mostly because these plays were almost all written by white guys, usually centered around a white male patriarch and his mid life crisis. I would argue, usually just among my peers, that a realistic play of this kind could still be new and interesting if it would just consider the viewpoints and experiences of other types of people and families (and I have since discovered “kitchen sink realism” plays by more diverse playwrights! They’ll be listed at the end of this piece).

Is realism really my thing though? Honestly, no. Reading or seeing it? Sure! There are quite a few more “realistic” or “slice of life” works I’ve enjoyed (just look at this SubStack). But it’s not what I write in the slightest. So, I put most of the conversations on the subject of “kitchen sink realism”, or even realism in general that I’d had, in the back of my mind.

That was until my peers started discussing the merits and pitfalls of the “mundane”.

By the “mundane” I mean the everyday, the seemingly “boring”, the rote life that most of us live. There’s been discussion, at least in my circles, about finding beauty and peace in the mundanity of a regular life. This is something I love and fully support! However, I found myself thinking perhaps a little too hard about the idea, and found I had some questions. My source of curiosity came initially from the definition of the word mundane:

mun-dane

adjective

1. lacking interest or excitement; dull

2. of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one

The first definition gives the word a negative connotation, and the second a neutral and merely functional one. I assume that’s where the idea of embracing the mundane, or finding beauty within it, becomes radical. Yes, there are boring, routine aspects of life for every person on earth. But when looking at life through this lens of finding beauty in the mundane…can anything truly be so? If you get to a point where you can truly find beauty in mundanity, can anything ever truly be mundane again?

And bringing it around to theater, a truly “mundane” or dull play would not be a successful one. Yet realism, “kitchen sink realism”, naturalism, etc. all survive, and are arguably, in fact, very popular. But if real life is mundane…how can a play depicting it be truly interesting? Well, you’re probably thinking, not all of real life is mundane, Brynn! And you’d be correct—there are ups and downs in everything. We only show the mundane moments of life in the theater when they are necessary to connect larger, more “interesting” moments of plot, right? And yet, sometimes those parts are the most beautiful or emotional moments of a performance. And sometimes, as in the case of one gorgeous piece called Home by Geoff Sobelle that I saw back in 2017, the whole performance is based on the mundane— and is still incredibly moving, entertaining, and beautiful. So, what truly is the mundane within the context of performance?

In an article called “On mundane performance” for “Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts”, the authors state, “Studying the mundane presents a paradox wherein that which is truly so unexceptional as to be unremarkable, once examined (and remarked upon), is made notable and no longer mundane.” (Goudouna, 2024). So I’m not alone here in finding the paradoxical nature of this line of questioning. What interests me as a playwright, then, is how one can utilize the mundane if, in a way, it doesn’t truly exist (especially in performance)?

I pondered for honestly far too long about how to tackle this playwriting question. If the mundane does not exist, as I and others have posited, then writing the “mundane” is not possible, and is therefore irrelevant…right? However, I still wanted to know how other artists viewed the creation of beautiful moments from something that was once mundane, but is now purposeful within a performance context.

First, I decided to return to the creator of the first piece I thought of when I thought of the beautiful mundane— Geoff Sobelle. While Sobelle is a self proclaimed absurdist that is “chiefly interested in the sublime ridiculous” (Koeberl, 2015), all of his pieces tend to revolve around very everyday objects or places. One example of this (besides Home) is his acclaimed piece, The Object Lesson. This theatrical phenomenon is an immersive piece in which the audience is surrounded by boxes and boxes full of everyday objects. The spectators are encouraged to create their own seating with the objects and boxes, as well as interact with the objects.

According to Sobelle’s professional website, The Object Lesson is supposed to unpack “our relationship to our everyday objects” (Sobelle). There’s that word “everyday” again, that notorious synonym for “mundane” (drink every time I write that word— or don’t, you’ll die). Through these mundane (sorry) objects, Sobelle investigates how a person’s life can be mapped through the simple items they keep in their home. A previously boring lamp tells a story, while perhaps also becoming a prop in a diorama somewhere where its meaning totally changes. It is no longer simply a light source you barely think about. It is no longer mundane. But, arguably, it was so before it was used theatrically.

From my perspective, Sobelle is not thinking about these objects as they exist in space. He’s not thinking about the regular, everyday uses for a lamp— he’s thinking about how the lamp becomes more. How it can become a tree in a puppet scene, a symbol in another, and perhaps simply a lamp as well. So when he’s writing (or creating) the mundane for performance, he is focused perhaps not on the previous mundanity of the object or space, but on its potential. This is one way to approach writing the mundane in performance: acknowledging that your use of it in a performance space automatically makes it not so, and embracing that.

But what if you want to emphasize the every-day-ness of something, the absolute non-speciality of it? Is there a way to truly accomplish such a thing?

Perhaps the secret to this question lies in the secondary definition of mundane: “of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one”. Instead of trying to write how average or stereotypical something is (which is hard to do because, again, just by writing and staging it, this thing is now special), think about what makes it so…itself.

What, for instance, makes a simple chair an “earthly” object? Is it the fact that a human being created it, and we are of this “earthly” plane? Is it its everyday usage, something that we virtually ignore by the nature of its ordinary-ness? Is it both?

In their article for “Critical Stages”, authors O’Malley, Turner, and Garcia argue that “mundane” performances (or mundanity in performance) can be categorized by four principles: “rediscovering of place, expressive of corporeal interconnectedness, engaged with materiality, and revealing earth as that which remains paradoxically concealed.” In this way, mundanity escapes its connotation of boredom and enters a new possibility of earthy grounded-ness. In this point of view, what makes a work of performance “mundane” is its connection to space, people, and physicality— its connection to the real, not necessarily in subject matter, but in presentation and experience. It is solid, and has an almost physical weight to it.

Therefore (if one follows this method) to write or present something in its mundanity, one should emphasize its connection to the earth, to the space it occupies, and the people that interact with it. The presentation of the story or plot itself should focus on interactivity with the audience, connection between performers, and connection between performers and space. A certain rooted nature should, in this perception, permeate the work. This would, supposedly, create a performance that is in its essence mundane— of the earth instead of the divine.

The previously cited editorial from “Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts” is the introduction to an issue full of papers examining the mundane in the realm of performances studies— from its usage in Chinese contemporary behavior art to queer transgressive joy, from its meanings for spectators and performers alike. That is to say, the methods previously discussed are not the only applications of the mundane to theatre. There is even a paper published in this issue about how the Buddhist Chan tea practice can be viewed as a type of mundane performance!

Like many things within the realm of art and creativity, there is no one right answer to the question, “Can playwrights intentionally use the mundane in their plays, and if so, how?” There are many correct answers, including the two I have explored, but also hundreds of others that nobody has written an overly analytical paper about yet.

I love the idea of a meditative, physical mundanity. Of highlighting shape, harmony, and simplicity within simple actions. That is what I find inspiring when I intentionally create mundanity in my plays. But what you might find intriguing will probably be different from what I am drawn to. So, I have no definitive guide to creating or using the mundane in your plays—I am not educated enough, in my opinion, to even really attempt such a thing— but what I can tell you is that there are many methods you can take to reach a similar end. Yours will be as unique as your artistic voice.

Thanks for listening to that long-winded, overly academic rant— I think I may miss writing research papers!

As promised, here are some kitchen-sink-style plays I’ve discovered on NPX by more diverse writers, if the genre is something you’re interested in exploring!

• The House of Flightless Birds by Baylee Schlictman

• BLOOD OF MY MOTHER’S by Karissa Murrell Myers

• Blue Roses by Nicole Zimmerer

• Rust by Nancy Garcia Loza

• Possum Trot by Kathy Rucker

• Back Porch Play by Adrian Lee Bush

Happy theatre-making!

~Brynn

Bibliography

Goudouna, Sozita; Eleni Kolliopoulou, Eero Laine, Rumen Rachev. “On mundane theater”. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 19 April 2024, pp 1-4.

Koeberl, Ross. “Object Permanence: An Interview with Geoff Sobelle.” Walker Reader, 2 Nov. 2015, walkerart.org/magazine/object-permanence-an-interview-with-geoff-sobelle/.

O’Malley, E., Turner, C., & Garcia, G. (2022, December). “Mundane” Performance: Theatre Outdoors and Earthly Pleasures. Critical Stages. https://www.critical-stages.org/26/mundane-performance-theatre-outdoors-and-earthly-pleasures/

Sobelle, Geoff. “The Object Lesson”. Geoff Sobelle’s Professional Website, https://www.geoffsobelle.com/the-object-lesson.